


Secret Admirers Are for Chumps

by SecretGeniusShittyKnight (augopher)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Mutually oblivious feelings, Romantic Gestures, Secret Admirer, fluff with a teeny tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/pseuds/SecretGeniusShittyKnight
Summary: Ransom has a secret admirer at work. He's not sure if he likes that. Lardo, as usual, has all the answers.





	Secret Admirers Are for Chumps

**Author's Note:**

> For justinoluransiinthehaus on Tumblr

“Oh, those are fancy. Tiger lilies?” Holster asked, popping his head into Ransom’s cubicle. 

 

“Yeah. They’re my-”

 

“Favorite,” they said in unison.

 

“Jinx,” Holster said with a wink. “Who are they from?”

 

Ransom looked at the small card tucked into the bouquet of flowers. “It doesn’t say. Just says, ‘You are a wonderful person whose smile brightens my day.’ Nothing else.”

 

Holster reached over and tousled Ransom’s hair, not that it did anything; the tightly coiled curls were cropped too close to his scalp. “Sounds like someone has a secret admirer. That’s cute.”

 

Ransom shrugged. “If you say so. I hope they don’t like expect me to just date them because they sent me gifts.”

 

A flash of an indecipherable emotion washed across Holster’s face, but it vanished in an instant. And without another word, Holster left Ransom’s cubicle and went back to work.

 

For the rest of the day, Ransom tried to put the flowers out of his mind. Yet, his thoughts kept drifting back to his mysterious admirer.

 

***

 

“These are fucking fantastic. Oh my God, Holtz. You have to try one!” Ransom didn’t give Holster a chance to object before he snatched a truffle from the box and held it to Holster’s mouth. And if his fingers happened to brush Holster’s lips, well whoops. “Best damn chocolates I’ve ever had.”

 

Holster mumbled in appreciation, his mouth full of confection. “Mmhmm.” After a beat of silence wherein both of them finished chewing, he spoke, “Do these have a card too?”

 

Ransom nodded, handing the card over. This time, instead of a small note, there was a crudely drawn handmade card with a slice of pizza on it.

 

“‘You have a pizza my heart.’ That’s adorable.”

 

“Check the inside. There’s more.”

 

Holster read, “You deserve the world, but no one in the world deserves you, not even me. You are one of a kind.’ Well, that’s...something.”

 

Ransom rubbed the back of his neck. “Whoever they are, they have good taste and seem to know me well.”

 

Nodding as though deep in thought, Holster chuckled, “You think it’s someone at the office? What if it’s Agnes on the fifth floor?”

 

Ransom gave him a playful smack in the arm. “Agnes is like my grandmother. Calls me the grandson she never had. Not only do I doubt she thinks of me that way, but I pray she doesn’t.”

 

***

 

“Okay,” Ransom said, dropping a box on the kitchen table when he got home. It hit with a thud and made Holster, Shitty, and Lardo look over at him from what looked to be an intense game of Mario Kart. “This is getting ridiculous. First, it was flowers, then chocolates, then a six-pack of that limited edition porter from All Ahead Full. You know the one…”

 

“Iceberg?” Shitty said.

 

“No the other one.”

 

“Ah, Hard to Port,” Lardo chimed in.

 

“Yes, That’s the one. And let me tell you, it’s fucking amazing. Please, do yourselves a favor and try one.”

 

Holster stretched his arms high above his head with a yawn, making his shirt ride up. Ransom absolutely did not stare. Nope. He didn’t even glance in that direction. “But wasn’t it like fifty dollars a six pack? I remember we asked about it when they announced it.”

 

“I know right? These gifts are getting extravagant. It’s almost like they’re trying to buy my affection.”

 

Holster sank down into the cushions of the couch. “Maybe they wanted to get you nice things? But you’re right, probably trying to buy your love.”

 

Was that a hint of bitterness? Ransom was about to ask, but he noticed the television out of the corner of his eye just in time to see Holster’s race rank drop from first to seventh as a blue turtle shell crashed into him. Lardo...was ruthless when it came to Mario Kart. “It’s been a week and a half. Flowers, chocolates, movie tickets, beer, and so on. I have no idea who this is, but it’s getting to be a bit much.”

 

“Yeah,” Holster mumbled, then cackled as he got retribution on Lardo’s blue shell by rocketing across the finish line just ahead of her. “Ha! That’s what I call karma!”

“Incidentally, what’s in the box?” Shitty popped the cap of one of the aforementioned bottles of porter.

 

“Oh, it’s...a Bruins t-shirt. A Bobby Orr shirt. In the correct size mind you. I didn’t think people at work listened when I talked about hockey. Hey Holtzy,” he said without looking as he pulled the shirt out of the box, “can you remember who it was I was telling about my favorite team? Was it Mark or was it Daphne?”

 

“Uh yeah, I think Holster went to take a piss or...something.” Shitty stroked his mustache, looking suspiciously like a supervillain when he did so.

 

***

 

To his surprise, the next day’s gift from his secret admirer was far less extravagant than he was suspecting, just lunch from Jimmy John’s. His usual order. It was starting to look more and more like Daphne from two rows of cubicles over was his secret admirer. She’d joined a bunch of them on a lunch outing more than once. Unfortunately, there was no card this time. 

 

As annoyed as he was that someone in his office had this much of a crush on him that they would spend so much money on gifts for him, he was also quite curious, a fact which he mentioned to Holster, Shitty, and Lardo over dinner that night. “I think it could be Daphne. I should talk to her tomorrow.”

 

“I think,” Holster said with an entirely too full mouth, “that is a terrible idea.”

 

“Why? I know I talked about hockey with her, she would know what I ordered on my sandwich. She’s gone to happy hour at All Ahead Full, so...like she would know these things I like. I’m going to ask her.”

 

Holster didn’t elaborate on why he thought it was a bad idea to simply ask Daphne upfront if she was his secret admirer. Perhaps after Ransom had relayed all his evidence, Holster agreed with him. However, he remained strangely quiet for the rest of the night.

 

***

 

“Well, as it turns out… Daphne is a lesbian. She thought it was adorable though that I was convinced- Wait, where’s Holster?”

 

Lardo gestured to the bathroom, “Shower.”

 

“I thought we were supposed to have a movie night.” Ransom rubbed his forehead. “No, wait. That was tomorrow.”

 

“So,” she said, looking over at him, “what’d’ya get today?”

 

He shook the Mason jar of pistachios at her, pink and red glitter flaking off and falling to the ground as he did so. “Whoever they are  is apparently, and I am quoting verbatim, ‘Nuts about me’. I don’t particularly care for pistachios, but it’s a cute idea. I guess.”

 

“Ransom,” Lardo walked over and put her hand on his shoulder, “you were uncomfortable when they were fancier gifts of things you liked, and you are annoyed when it’s homemade gifts of things you don’t like. That…”

 

“Sounds spoiled. I know. It’s more that I just want to know who it is. It’s unnerving… starting to feel like a stalker. That’s all.”

 

She hummed in contemplation. “You want to know what I think?”

 

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

 

“I think… you already know who it is.”

 

“I knew it! It  _ is _ Mark. So how do I tell the guy I am not interested in him? He’s...I don’t know...utterly boring. Nice, but boring and should have told me all this to my face. Dunno, it’s becoming kind of creepy if you ask me.”

 

Lardo rolled her eyes, “Real insightful there, bro. Is it creepy, or are you just annoyed that they’re not coming from the person you really want to send you gifts?” 

 

“Wait-” he called to her retreating back. “What was that supposed to mean?”

 

***

 

Three more days of increasingly simple gifts before Ransom came into work to find only a pink envelope decorated in that same pink and red glitter as the jar of pistachios, the homemade snowglobe, and pizza card on his desk. Inside was a machine printed note that said, ‘ _ Sorry. I’ll stop. Didn’t mean to freak you out. I tried to tell you in person, but I chickened out… again like the coward I am.’  _ There was badly drawn chicken with a sad face at the bottom of the note, but no name.

 

Huh, well how about that?

 

Ransom got up from his desk to go relay the latest events in this secret admirer saga to Holster, only to find his desk empty, computer off. 

 

“Looking for Holster? He was here for about five minutes. Looked miserable. Boss sent him home sick.”

 

What? Holster wasn’t sick. He’d seen the guy just this morning just before he walked into the bathroom. He looked fine, and even if he  _ was _ sick, why hadn’t he said anything to Ransom? They usually played nurse for each other when under the weather. 

 

Baffled, Ransom sat down at his desk and tried to work, but for the better part of the day, his mind was elsewhere.

 

***

 

When he walked through the door that afternoon, after feigning illness (and why shouldn’t he? If his roommate got sent home ill, it stood to reason that he might also have caught the same bug. A total lie of course, but a believable one), he found himself met with total silence. Perhaps Holster was sleeping, as well he should be, but Ransom knocked on his door just to check on him.

 

“Hey, Holtzy...can I get you anything?”

 

“No.”

 

“Are you sure. They said you looked like you felt terrible. Least let me come in and give you the cursory check.”

 

“No. It’s fine.”

 

“Which one of us took a crapton of biology classes?”

 

Inside Holster’s room, he heard rustling, but eventually, Holster came and opened the door. The first thing Ransom noticed were his red-rimmed eyes and puffy face. He’d been crying. That or he had the worst case of stuffy-cold-watery-eyes face (trademark pending) that Ransom had ever seen. He was about to ask what the matter had been when his eyes caught sight of a bag, the contents of which were spilling onto the floor as though it had been haphazardly stuffed under Holster’s desk. 

 

This, in and of itself, wouldn’t be too noticeable, but the bag of pistachios, a package of glass jars, scraps of construction paper...and a container of Valentine’s Day themed glitter which had opened and poured out onto the carpet caught his attention. Caught it, and kept it.

 

Pieces of the puzzle all slotted into place. Lardo had been right; he was upset because someone had been giving him all those gifts and it bothered him...because they hadn’t been from Holster.

 

Or so he thought.

 

Holster followed his line of sight, and a panicked squeak the likes Ransom wouldn’t even have thought possible from him escaped his throat. Ransom turned to look at him, noticing all the color had drained from his face. 

 

Holster swallowed hard, eyes wide as though he was staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. Ransom swore he could see all the thoughts racing around in his head.

 

“I-” he began, but stopped, turned, and flopped down on his bed face first, burying his face in his pillow. What followed next, on any other day, Ransom would say was just Holster being overdramatic, but today… Holster screamed, the pillow muffling most of the noise. Then, he groaned, “Just get it over with, Rans.”

 

Get what- Oh. “Well, you could have gone about it in a less...weird way.”

 

Holster rolled over onto his back, covering his face with an arm. “I thought people found the idea of a Secret Admirer romantic. Clearly, I was mistaken.”

 

“Was this all a joke?” Ransom had to be sure before he said anything else.

 

Holster peeked out from under his arm. “What? Why would you think that?” With a long suffering sigh, he said, “First, I was just going to get you flowers. Then waltz over and say, ‘Surprise! Those are from me.’ But I panicked, and then, well you know” he gesticulated wildly with the arm not covering his face. 

 

“It snowballed?”

 

“Yes. Exactly. So I tried to up the stakes. Nicer gifts each day, but you didn’t seem to like that. So, I went homemade. And well, then I overheard you talking to Lardo. So I gave up. Just if you would kindly put me out of my misery before leaving my room, that would be just grand,” he groaned.

 

Ransom pondered the thought. Holster  _ was _ a large guy with larger emotions, who had the tendency to go over the top with most things. Why would declarations of romantic feelings be any different? And it was not as though Ransom  _ didn’t _ think of Holster that way. In fact, it was the opposite. He adored him but had written off those feelings as purely platonic (most of the time. He was only human. So sue him) because Holster hadn’t shown any interest.

 

This was a case of differening preferences. Ransom preferred subtlety and Holster...did ostentatious work here? Yes, ostentatious. Had Ransom at any time grabbed a megaphone and shouted, ‘I think you’re great! I’d really like to kiss you...among other things!’, or had Holster just left a custom crossword puzzle on Ransom’s desk which spelled out, ‘You and I work great together. Date me?’ then they wouldn’t be in this mess.

 

So, he walked around to the other side of the bed, lying down on his back beside him. Then, he pried Holster’s arm away from his face and kissed his hand. “The beer was a nice touch. I thought they’d sold out of that one.”

 

Holster stared at him, flabbergasted. “I- you- what?”

 

Ransom rolled over and kissed Holster’s cheek. “Don’t hurt yourself there, Holtzy.”

 

“So...wait! This is a mutal feeling?” he shouted.

 

“Ding, ding, ding. Now he gets it.”

 

Holster burst out in ecstatic laughter. “You have got to be kidding me! But I um, sort of waited in line from like six am day of release. They sold out two people behind me.”

 

“Worth it,” Ransom said, lacing their fingers together.

 

“So um...I had a gift I decided not to give you and figured I would just see if you wanted to go with me...instead of you know…”

 

“Going with the mystery secret admirer?”

 

“Bingo. I have a pair of second row tickets for tomorrow’s game against the Aeros.”

 

Ransom reached over and tugged at him until Holster rolled on top of him. He kissed him on the nose. “I would love to.”

 

“Then it’s a date.”

 

“It certainly is.”

 


End file.
